The Duke of Argyll, in the course of his noble
speech against Purchase, dropped one extremely improper remark. He said he would not call the web which imprisoned the Army a spider's web ; he would drop the spider, "for the spicier was a most un- popular insect." Shades of Bruce, it is a Scotelnnau who says it, and in saying it robe you of your grand hold on the imagination of childhood ! If the reputations of insects are to be taken away in this light and reckless manner—for the Peers actually laughed — what are we not to expect ? 'We shall have Lord Salisbury saying next that the industrious ant is a bore, and the Bishop of Winchester damning the busy bee, and Lord Houghton declaring that the cricket is a melancholy little boast, and Lord Sandhurst affirming that the hornet is a meek creature, and Lord Strathuairn asserting that the dragon-fly is very badly dressed, until in the gradual process of destructive criticism human faith in the idio- syncrasies of insects will be wholly rubbed away. Will that man in Punch who makes insects as interesting as human beings and far more amusing, just draw for an admiring world the look of the Lords' Spider—surely a dignified insect—as he hung from the gilded ceiling listening to the Duke of Argyll ?
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